De Lancie Answers Fan Questions

John de Lancie, who portrayed “Q” in Star Trek: The Next Generation through Star Trek: Voyager, talked about his role as the omnipotent troublemaker.

Although Q was a troublemaker and a nuisance for several Trek captains, de Lancie did not consider him a villain. “Q was never a villain as far as I was concerned … I might have been arrogant and badly flawed and all that, but I never thought of the character as a villain.”

De Lancie was satisfied with his role, but would have liked to have been on more Star Trek episodes, provided that the issues discussed were important and not trivial. “I would have liked to have been on the different Star Treks more than I was, as long as the episodes were about big issues,” he said. “When I was on it with little issues – like Q and Vash – I just don’t think those episodes worked as well. I know some fans appreciate them, but episodes about reclaiming your life, suicide, do you deserve to be out here … those were the ones about the most interesting issues, so those are the ones that had the best scenes and that I think of as the best episodes. So if they’d continued in that vein I would have liked to have been more involved.”

What was Q’s best scene in all of the episodes in which he appeared? “… I can tell you that I think a lot of what came out of All Good Things… really clicked. I remember being particularly pleased with many of the scenes in the finale.”

Would de Lancie appear in a new Star Trek movie if asked? “I’d be very interested,” he said. “The only problem is that I, too, am suffering from this mortal thing called aging and there’s a point at which it might not make sense. What might make sense is that you hear my voice, but I just don’t know that it would make sense to have an aging Q. I would have a problem with that as a viewer, and I don’t think I’d be the only one.”